Gang of Four

The Gang of Four was a group that rose to political prominence during the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-76). It comprised Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Zhang Chunqiao. They were radical adherents to the idea of the revolution, and wielded their greatest inflluence from 1969, by which time they had been made members of the Politburo (in the cases of Jiang, Yao, and Zhang) and the Party Central Committee (Wang) respsectively. In the early 1970s, the Gang of Four became the main driving force in the Cultural Revolution. Its influence climaxed in early 1976, when it achieved the removal of its greatest enemy, Deng Xiaoping, from all his posts. However, the Gang's greatest strength, its influence on, and access to Mao, was also its greatest weakness. Jealously resented among the other members of the party, their power collapsed less than a month after Mao's death, when they were arrested on the orders of Hua Guofeng. In a public trial, they were sentenced to death in the case of Jiang and Zhang (later commuted to life imprisonment), life imprisonment for Wang, and twenty years' imprisonment for Yao.